Locally owned, independent real estate agency Village Properties has been recognized as one of the nation’s top brokerage companies based on average sales price for homes sold last year.

RealTrends, the country’s leading source of analysis and information on the residential real estate industry, placed Village Properties among the top three firms nationwide in the average sales price by volume category for 2020. The Santa Barbara-based brokerage ranked ahead of all but two real estate agencies across the country.

“This is a tremendous honor, and a testament to the hard work our agents put in every day to help homeowners maximize the sales price of their properties,” said Village Properties owner Renee Grubb. “As a locally owned, independent brokerage, it’s quite an accomplishment to be ranked so highly.”

Village Properties Realtors agents represented 840 buyers and sellers in 2020 and generated a total sales volume of more than $1.8 billion, with the average sales price per transaction about $2.2 million.

Now in its 34th year, the RealTrends 500 is the leading report ranking the performance of the top residential real estate brokerage firms in the United States. Categories include closed sales volume, 500 or more transaction sides, highest average sales price, and largest increase in closed transactions from 2019 to 2020.

Sales and home prices are expected to continue trending upward in 2021 as the pandemic dissipates, more homeowners feel comfortable putting properties on the market, and wealthy urbanites flee big cities for smaller communities like Santa Barbara in search of a better standard of living.